Windows Phone wasn’t supported even when they said it was. I bought a $30 Nokia that I liked a lot, but there was no way to have voicemail alerts repeat, something standard going back to, well before cell phones. MS response to many inquiries: tough titty.

And it’s a shame, because the Windows Phone OS really had the potential to mature into a no-nonsense, information-focused alternative to iOS and Android. But third-party developers never really pushed themselves to embrace that paradigm. It didn’t help that Microsoft’s own conservatism, second-guessing, and apparent deafness to user feedback stifled any development that would have encouraged them to do so.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to place an order on the RingingBells website although it claims that all products can be bought through the website. Perhaps there is a filter excluding non-Indian access?

You know, I bought a Windows phone shortly after they appeared. I had been using Android and I was pleased with that OS, but I thought a Windows OS phone might be more compatible with my computer programs. I really loved that it read my text messages while on Bluetooth, and it had flawless voice input (every uh, fuck, and damn written in text). However, I preferred how customizable the Android home screen is and I hated that all my favorite apps weren’t available on Windows. I ended up returning the phone after three weeks because the HTC phone kept rebooting itself.

I recently bought my son a ‘Doogee X3’ phone - it was deliberately a cheap purchase (£43) as I wanted something he could get use to get used to carrying a phone around with that I wouldn’t be too upset about if he accidentally trashed or lost.

From the looks of it the Freedom 251 is very similar - the CPU looks identical, and it’s got a similar resolution screen. Although the information on both phones claim they have IPS screens, the screen on the Doogee X3 is terrible. It’s very difficult to read outside and the viewing angles on it are tiny; so much so that if you use the phone in landscape mode, each eye will see a different colour.

I also found out today that the GPS is very poor - we both downloaded Pokémon Go, and went out searching for Pokémon but we were hindered by his intermittent GPS, which kept dropping the signal.

Anyway, I suspect the experience with the Freedom 251 will be similar. They look like very, very similar phones.